


The Madhouse

by HolierThanThou



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark Anakin Skywalker, Gen, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Obi Wan is a SassMaster™, Qui Gon cant let things go, Sith Anakin Skywalker, Vader is a little bitch, my first fanfiction, my mom is a writer so if this is bad im bringing shame to the family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:00:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24373939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolierThanThou/pseuds/HolierThanThou
Summary: In the wake of the fall of the Republic, the Jedi flee to the far corners of the galaxy. 18 years later, the Rebellion is growing stronger and stranger each day.Darth Vader is  the Emperor's enigmatic apprentice, Qui-Gon can't let things go, and Obi-Wan is not impressed.Welcome to the Empire.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn & Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 15
Kudos: 59





	1. Prologue

Leather clad feet were trudging through the puddles of blood and dirt. A tall man with long salt and pepper hair, and sand coloured robes covered in dark blood stains made his way through the battlefield, eyes scouring across the dead. A battlefield that only yesterday had been a peaceful settlement. There were severed limbs and random pieces of flesh strewn around on the ground. Glassy eyes staring blankly into the darkness, unseeing. Forcing himself to look away, he dragged himself onwards through the rubble, moving towards his goal.  
He could feel him, the life force like a beacon, radiating with power. The darkness hanging around was suffocating, hanging around like a heavy smog. There was only one person out on the battlefield who could have such a presence, only one person that could be this prominent in the force.

“Vader.” He hissed under his breath, clutching his lightsaber tighter in his hand.

In the distance stood a figure, clad in completely in black. Where his face was supposed to be was instead black durasteel. His clothes were drenched in blood and his cloak was torn in places. The figure, which could only be assumed to be a humanoid, raised his head slightly. He had been waiting.  
A deep voice sounded, hollow and echoing.

“We were wondering when you would grace us with your presence, Master Jedi.” The slightly robotic tinge to the voice suggested a voice modifier in the mask. Interesting.

The tall man straightened and raised his chin up at the other, glaring. Vader was shorter than would be expected of a man with his reputation, if you could even call him a man at all. Darth Vader was the empire’s newest Sith, a Dark Lord with quite a track record, spanning from seven years ago to the present. He was ruthless, having slaughtered thousands upon thousands of people. No Jedi had ever survived an encounter with the Emperor’s right hand man, and until a year ago they hadn’t even had a picture to put to the name. Not that it had done them any good, the man was always masked anyway. A metal, skull-like black mask that send shivers running down people’s spines. All they knew came from the news reports, and the corpses left behind on the battlefields. There was even speculation that Darth Vader was actually a machine, built to do his Masters bidding, without flinching and without feeling. Because how could a man commit such atrocities? But now, standing before him, not more than 40 feet apart, he knew without a doubt this was a man. He could feel his life force flowing through him and around him, like a heavy fog. He could feel the dark side pulsing through the other.

Vader took his hand out from under his cloak to reveal a lightsaber, and in an instant his presence disappeared from the force, shrinking away to nothing and barring him from sensing anything else from him. The dark robed man side-stepped to the right, his cloak flowing around his ankles. Following the other man in his movement, the Jedi stepped to side as well.  
Another step.  
He gripped his lightsaber until his knuckles turned white under the dried blood. Vader turned on his lightsaber with a leather gloved hand, and a blood-red blade sprang forth into the darkness, illuminating his mask. With the red light reflecting of the shiny black metal, Darth Vader looked like a demon. The empty sockets in the mask where his eyes should be were red as the kyber crystal in his saber. In response, he pressed the activation button on his own blue blade, and it burst out to rival the light of the other. 

Another step to the right. Two more. Stand still. 

Vader pounced. Raising his blade to meet the ruby red of the Sith, the already tired-out Jedi Master strained against the force of the blow. Pushing him back, Vader aimed his saber at his knees, forcing the Jedi to move his blade downwards. Blocking the lightsaber, the Jedi brought his own blade up high to bear down on Vader’s shoulder. His blow was quickly met by the other’s blood-red blade. Blow on blow followed, each pushing the other around, but neither being able to land a hit. The Sith was as quick as lightning, his lightsaber moving in flowing motions, leaving trails of red in the night air, and the Jedi was hard pressed to keep up in his worn out state.  
After about ten minutes of back and forth, the man finally found an opening. He dashed and struck Vader on his left side, just under his ribcage. The Sith hissed in pain and backed up a step, clutching at the wound, before bringing his lightsaber back up in rage. The Jedi struck at the shorter man and their blades locked together, blue and red straining against each other, pushed closer by their Masters. The blades slid against each other and in one split second the Jedi managed to push his saber over the Sith’s own, knocking the hilt against the side of the other man’s head. With a soft thud, Vader fell to ground, his mask flying to his right in the dirt. Finding his balance, the Jedi looked down at Darth Vader’s face for the first time, but he was shocked by what he saw.

His mask lay abandoned next to him, out of reach, with a crack where it had been struck. Vader´s eyes darted around looking for the dreadful thing, his hands searching the rocky ground beneath him. 

Blood trickled sluggishly down his cheek from his eyebrow, mixing with the grime on his face, and blond curls cascaded down from under the darkness of the hood of his cloak, illuminated by the blue light of his lightsaber. Abandoning his search for his mask, his head snapped up sharply, wide blue eyes meeting the Jedi’s own. The shocked look on the Jedi’s face snapped him out of his daze, and he jumped to his feet, a snarl on his lips, lightsaber still in the Sith’s hand. The look on the boys face had something feral to it. Boy, not man. The boy looked no older than eighteen, probably younger. His face still had a child-like softness to it in places, and his chin lacked hair still.  
He had to get back to the ship, he had to report this, the other Jedi had to know. Vader was dangerous, and there were no guarantees he would get out of this fight alive, and the Sith had already proven himself to be a formidable warrior.  
No, he had to prioritize. This was an important piece of information that could be vital to the future of the Alliance and the galaxy. Before, Darth Vader had been a faceless killer, a monster that could be lurking anywhere, someone that could bring mass destruction to their cause. Now however, he had a face, an identity beyond his Sith status.

He was the only one with this information, and he had to make sure that it survived, that HE survived.

Making his decision, he splayed out his hand and force-pushed the Sith back with all of his might, sending him flying backwards. Taking one last look at his opponent , Qui-Gon Jinn turned on his heel and did something he had never done before in his life... he fled.


	2. The Rebellion

As Qui-Gon boarded the ship, his mind was running all over the place.  
It was unfathomable to him that a monster like Darth Vader could ever be this way.  
His face had shaken him to the core, being the opposite of what he had expected.  
He had expected someone older, for one. A man of his skill and abilities had to have had years of intensive training to get to this level, yet Vader looked so young, his face unmarked by harsh lines that came with age. Had he been a Jedi, he would still have been a padawan.  
That a boy his age could match a Jedi master like himself in a lightsaber duel was unheard of. It was strange, and intriguing. Qui-Gon had felt the raw power radiating from him when he faced him. The darkness rolling of Vader had been smothering to a user of the lightside, and the feeling of intense cold had been startling at first. But the most terrifying had been when all that power and presence disappeared entirely. It was a power the Jedi did not hold.  
Only a true Sith could shield like that.  
Lost in thought, Qui-Gon almost didn’t notice they had entered hyperspace. As the blurred lights outside rushed past, he unhooked his comlink from his utility belt and paused for a second, before pressing the buttons on the screen. 

“Qui-Gon, what have you to report?” a croaky voice answered the com.  
Qui-Gon screwed his eyes shut, thinking.  
“ There were no survivors,” The man replied. “But I have managed to retrieve some very interesting information regarding Darth Vader,”  
“Hmmm, what sort of information have you, Master Jinn?” The other person questioned, interest peaked.  
Qui-Gon decided to just go straight to the point.  
“His mask fell off. I saw his face,” He stated bluntly.

The person on the other side went deathly quiet.

He waited.

After a good while, the other voice spoke up.  
“Return at once, you must. Report to the council, you must. Vital information, this could be.”  
“ I am already on my way, Master. We will arrive within the hour.”  
“Expecting you, the council will be. May the force be with you, Master Jinn,” The croaky voice concluded.  
“And with you.” 

A beep sounded, and with that the com-call ended. 

The Jedi Master looked around the pristine white walls of the ship. Sighing deeply, he brought his hand up to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. When Obi-Wan was a young padawan, he would call this his “thinking face”, and today he had a lot to think about.  
He had gone to Ryloth to look for survivors of the imperial attack on the small uprising there. Dissatisfied civilians, nothing that would have warranted special forces. He had never expected Vader to be there personally, and when he sensed him he had sought him out. Out of curiosity, if nothing else. Though he loathe to admit it, the Sith fascinated him. He had appeared quite suddenly in the spotlight almost seven years ago, and in those seven years he had practically flown through the ranks until he officially became second in command and supreme commander of the imperial military. Not that he hadn’t virtually held that position anyway, as Sidious’ Sith apprentice. He had impressive accomplishments in battle, and had more than a few Jedi deaths to his name. Two padawans and five knights. None of them had come back from their rendezvous with Vader. His name popped up in the Coruscanti newspapers from time to time, but there wasn’t any useful information in there, only imperial propaganda and slaughter. Vader travelled the galaxy quelling any and all uprisings and enforcing the empire’s barbaric laws.  
The Emporer’s executioner. His henchman. 

He sighed deeply and turned his thoughts elsewhere. Soon he would be back aboard the rebel flagship, the Resilient. First, he would have a meeting with council to relay what he had discovered. It was a key to unlocking Vader’s identity. After that he could go find his padawan, if she didn’t find him first. He had been neglecting his duties as her master more and more, with the war going on around them, but that was also why it was so important that she be taught. They needed every Jedi they could get and she needed to be able to defend herself from the so-called “Inquisitors”. A group of military ranking individuals tasked with bringing every trained force- sensitive to justice. Or what they call justice, anyway. They hunted Jedi in particular.  
Absentmindedly he stood up to find the other passengers aboard the ship, named the SC Azaria.  
Walking through the brightly lit uniform walls of the rebel ship, his feet led him all the way to the cockpit where he knocked on the sliding door. 

“Hold on!” Came a high pitched voice from the other side of the door.  
He could hear things getting thrown around and shoved away inside. Thinking this was going to take a while, he turned away from the door and started examining a very peculiarly shaped brown stain on the ceiling on the other side of the hallway. It was about the size of a hand and had the shape of a human kidney. It could have been from a leak, or other things he wasn’t willing to think about. After about ten more seconds of studying the faded edges of the spot, the door finally slid open to reveal a young orange-skinned Twi’lek smiling sheepishly up at him, hands clasped behind her back, rocking back and forth on her heels.  
“Hey there Qui-Gon, whatcha doin’up here buddy?” she questioned innocently, the bright smile on her face showing of all her teeth.  
“I know you were smoking up here, Aydina’Ren,” He replied “I can sense your guilt.”  
He didn’t feel the need to tell her he could smell the smoke from downstairs.  
The Twi’lek scrunched her nose up in distaste.  
“Kriffin’ Jedi and their kriffin’ special powers, always one-upping us ordinary folks and bein’ all smug about it,” She muttered under her breath, spitting at each curse word. “It’s not fair”  
“Language, young one,” He reprimanded softly. “And you are far from ordinary”  
She only huffed in reply, taking her hands from behind her back and pulling a brightly coloured spice stick from her pocket. Putting the thing between her lips, she patted herself down in search of something to light it with.  
Qui-Gon scoffed and plucked it from her mouth, ignoring her shouts of protest and creative cursing.  
“You shouldn’t smoke, young one, it is bad for your health and makes your breath reek like an ashtray.” He scolded, putting it in one of the many small leather pouches on his belt.  
“Don’t call me that, I’m not a youngling, you don’t get to do that!” The short tempered woman exclaimed. “And give me back my ‘stick!”  
“I will hold on to it for you, in the meantime you can focus on piloting,” He said.  
She gave him a hard stare which he returned in kind. Her eye twitched in frustration.  
With some grumbling and a few muttered curse words, Aydina’Ren flopped herself down in the pilot seat and looked straight ahead, crossing her arms her chest, while Qui-Gon calmly sat down in the other one. Looking around, he noticed something missing.  
“Where is your co-pilot?” he asked.  
“Gone, no idea where he went. Can’t depend on anyone in this blasted kriffin’ galaxy.” She huffed indignantly.  
“ Well, when will we be emerging out of hyperspace?”  
“ETA is twenty-three minutes from now.” She answered curtly without looking up.  
“ I will leave you to it then” He said.  
She only nodded sharply without looking at him, still boring holes into the control-panel ahead of her.  
Standing up, Qui-Gon left.  
Wandering around the ship for the remaining twenty minutes of the voyage, he tried not to think too hard on the last day since he had been sent out.  
Instead he paced in the common room, clearing his mind, but staying in motion. When they dropped out of hyperspace he moved over to the window to look out on the Resilient, and the smaller fighters flying around her, engaging in playful dogfights. The moment they entered real-space he could sense his padawan aboard the enormous ship, and his old apprentice along with her. He smiled tiredly, his eyes crinkling at the sight of the ship, but he wouldn’t be able to sleep until his meeting was over. They made their way over to the main hangar and before he knew it he was walking down the ramp with the other rebels. As soon as he set foot in the hangar, something orange and blue slammed into him and he felt skinny arms surround him.

Ahsoka launched herself on her master, her head-tails swinging behind her. She hugged him tightly.  
“You’re back!” she yelled cheerfully. She pulled back and smiled brightly up at him.  
“Yes, young padawan, I am, but I have to go meet with the council now,” he told her.  
She stuck out her lower lip and pouted at him, turning huge blue eyes up at him.  
“But you’ve been gone too long already and Master Obi-Wan is being no fun at all,” she complained.  
“I’ve been gone little more than a day,” he replied “And you shouldn’t bother poor Obi-Wan. He’ll go prematurely grey.”  
“Take me with you next time! Please, I can fight. I’ve been practicing lightsaber combat every day!” She whined “ I’ve training for years! I can handle myself out there, I promise!”  
“It’s not all about swinging a lightsaber around, young one. You are not ready.”  
“But-”  
“No buts, Ahsoka. I have told you this many times.”  
Behind her appeared another man in the same Jedi robes Qui-Gon wore, with red hair to his shoulders.  
“Well hello there,” said the man. “I see you’re back.”  
“Hello Obi-Wan, I trust my padawan behaved herself while I was gone.”  
Obi-Wan snorted loudly,  
“If you call challenging Rikuja Azet to a duel and almost destroying the sparring arena behaving, then yes, perfectly well-behaved,” Obi-Wan’s voice was positively dripping with sarcasm. He turned his head to the girl beside him and gave her a disapproving look. Ahsoka didn’t notice, being quite busy with another problem. “ You certainly didn’t pick an easy one”  
“You’re just grumpy,” she said, not denying anything.  
Ahsoka was fiddling with her silka beads, trying to detangle them from each other, her tongue sticking out through her teeth crookedly and her eyes squinting closely at her hands in concentration.  
Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows in outrage. You see, that’s what Obi-Wan Kenobi’s face looked like when he was anything that wasn’t calm and collected.  
“It’s true,” said Ahsoka, sensing his emotions. “ You never let me do anything fun. It’s just meditating for ever and ever and ever...” She scrunched up her nose and narrowed her eyes in concentration. “And then there’s the tea....”

“Nevertheless, you shouldn’t speak to Obi-Wan like that, young one. He deserves your respect,” Qui-Gon replied.  
“As much as I would love to stay and chat, I have to get going, I have a meeting with the council to get to,” He added. He bowed forward a little and pointed a long finger between Ahsoka’s blue eyes. “You behave yourself for Obi-Wan, I will be back in a few hours.”  
Ahsoka had finally succeeded in freeing her silka beads from each other and grinned triumphantly, not appearing to have heard her master, or ignoring him completely.  
Qui-Gon gave Obi-Wan a look that said and you behave as well. Obi-Wan might not be his padawan anymore, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still boss him around.  
Obi-Wan smiled sardonically back at him, which immediately turned back to a serene expression becoming of a Jedi knight.  
Qui-Gon felt the corners of his mouth quirk up a little. He bowed to Obi-Wan, who returned the gesture, and turned around, walking swiftly out of the hanger bay.  
Making his way to the council chamber, he was greeted left and right by familiar faces. He strode down the long artificially lit hallways, taking note of all the people around and nodding at them in greeting.  
The long sterile hallways eventually led him to a grey durasteel door.  
This door wasn’t any different than all the grey doors he had passed on the way. It was exactly the same.  
The only difference was that beside this door were standing two guards in black rebel uniforms.  
“Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, here to meet with the Jedi council, to discuss my recent findings.”  
The guard on the right, a young human woman with straggly black hair and a freckly nose, nodded at him. She sent a pointed look her companion, who marked something on a datapad.  
A beep sounded and the screen flashed green.  
The man looked up at him with sunken dark eyes.  
“The council will see you now,” He spoke, swiping his ID card through the scanner next to the door.  
The door slid open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This sucks, but people have actually subscribed to this and I feel bad....  
> ...  
> halp.
> 
> I'll get better at this and write the whole thing over later.


End file.
